Happy New Year's to all...

And to all, may your hangover be mild, and your memory not spotty…

Here's to a safe, happy, and cheerful New Year!

Vedauwoo, Ames Monument, and spontaneous roaming

No, that's not a sound you make when you sneeze.

Vedauwoo (pronounced vee-da-voo) is this huge group of granite outcroppings in the Medicine Bow National Forest, about 30 minutes west of Cheyenne. Vedauwoo was known to the Arapaho's as "Land of the Earthborn Spirit", and suffice it to say, it's a fitting name.

Since we're still very new to this area, and since I'm still fairly homesick for Washington, and especially since the holidays are (almost) over and we have more time now, we decided to start exploring our surroundings. You know, make attachments and memories and all that jazz. So yesterday we headed out to Vedauwoo to explore, since we've heard so much about it.

When we left our house, it was sunny and 40 degrees- brisk, but certainly tolerable. But the time we got up to Vedauwoo, however? 18 flippin' degrees. Luckily, we were all fairly well bundled, though we collectively wished we'd brought our gloves!

Here's me and my little guy taking refuge from the wind

Despite the fact that it was colder than a witch's ass up there, we hiked around for about 45 minutes or so. It's gorgeous up there, even in the dead of winter. The rocks are amazing, and I can certainly see why it's a climber's paradise.

Do you see the face!?

After exploring for awhile (and shortly before our fingers froze off), we got back in the blessed warmth of the car and followed the signs across the freeway to the Ames Monument. The monument is in honor of Oliver and Oakes Ames, who were instrumental in the first intercontinental railroad across America. It's basically this gigantic, 6-story, granite pyramid rising up out of the plains.

Ames was a fairly quick stop, because the wind had picked up and (as you can tell in the above pic) we were all curled up inside our jackets trying to stay warm! The monument is located in Curt Gowdy State Park, so once the weather warms up to a tolerable temperature, we're going to go back and find some hiking trails out there.

After Ames, we headed back to Cheyenne for dinner. This was our view…

The skies here are amazing, which makes the spontaneous exploring of our surroundings even more beautiful. Maybe this place will start feeling like home after all!

Christmas coma anyone?

Hey hey!

Happy Friday After Christmas!

I hope everyone's holiday was happy, safe, and blessed.

Mine was quite lovely. We didn't have the White Christmas I was hoping for, as the snow we got Christmas Eve morning was half-hearted at best, but it was wonderful nonetheless.

My house is still in post-Christmas shambles, but I'll work on it bit by bit. I refuse to feel any pressure, man. I'm just digging the vacation!

I've been done with fall quarter for almost a week now, and it's been absolutely divine. I always forget what it feels like to take a deep breath until school ends!

Of course, I'm already stressing over winter quarter and my increased class load, but I'm trying to ignore it for now and just enjoy my break. Plus, two of my three classes have low enrollment, so unless people start signing up fast, they may get cancelled, leaving me having to either scramble for two new electives, or delaying my graduation by a quarter. Which will… piss me off, to say the least.

But I'm letting Future Sarah deal with that!

Current Sarah has more important things to do!

Today's plan? Watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with the kids, make paper beads with my daughter, and do a thorough post-Christmas vacuuming. I also have a couple of Yahoo! articles to work on.

I also intend to work on organizing the basement more, making a Goodwill run, and doing some general cleaning. But all that will happen in good time.

For now?

Baby, it's cold outside

So in case you missed it, a huge chunk of the U.S. has been hit by a vicious cold snap.

We're part of it too, though apparently the national news has forgotten that Wyoming exists. (Then again, I used to forget Wyoming existed too, you know, before I moved here!)

To sum up: it's freaking cold!!!

Like, record-breaking, shockingly, unusually cold. For instance, today is a "warm" day, it we're supposed to have a high of 6 degrees. Yes, 6. As in, well below freezing.

But hey, it least it isn't a high in the negatives, like it was the past couple of days…

Put on a couple extra layers and buck up!

We've also had The Husband's mother visiting us this past week, and she has let us know under no uncertain terms how cold it is. Apparently it would be warmer to live in the Arctic than in Wyoming…

With all the complaining she has done, you'd think she lived on some tropical island in the South Pacific, and not some place that actually gets more snow and just as cold of temperatures as we do here. It would figure that Mother Nature would decide to misbehave when my MIL is in town…

I'm sure some how this will end up being my fault! Because clearly I'm in control of the weather and use its power solely to inconvenience others...

Besides freezing our nubs off, things have also been incredibly busy. School has been a struggle for me this quarter, for some reason. My classes aren't necessarily particularly difficult, and I've actually enjoyed the subject matter, but since the move I feel like I'm just barely keeping up. And this coming week I have two papers due, two quizzes due, a fuller work load than normal… and my sister-in-law and brother-in-law are flying into town…

How I'm going to juggle it all, I don't know. I'm going to try and get one of the papers done this weekend and turn it in early, and beyond that, I may have to be fairly anti-social and sequester myself in the bedroom doing schoolwork. But we warned everyone that the kids and I would still have school when they were here visiting, so I guess it is what it is.

Today, though, I have festive plans! Since the past week has been so hectic, I'm behind on my decorating. I'm usually the one whose house looks like the North Pole puked in it the weekend after Thanksgiving, so the fact that my tree isn't even done yet?

Shameful!

So I'm going to finish my decorating today. I also have a crap ton of Christmas cookies to make.

(Yes, crap ton is an official form of measurement)

Then tonight, The Husband and I are going to a "traveling Christmas party" that his department is putting on. We'll be having appetizers at one person's house, the main meal at another's, and desert and gifts at a third. It sounds like fun, and I'm honestly looking forward to getting out of the house for a few hours.

We're also going to try and squeeze in some super secret Christmas shopping too, though I'm not sure if we'll have the time today.

Either way though, it's time to get my Christmas on!!!